Running of the bulls: Nappier to seek re-election as Dow hits high

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The subject of speculation that she might not run again, the longest-tenured statewide office holder in Connecticut tells Hearst Connecticut Newspapers she hopes to be on the ballot in 2014.

On a day when the Dow Jones industrial average reached an all-time high, Democratic state Treasurer Denise Nappier said she has no plans to step away from her post at the end of what is her fourth term.

“I’m not going anywhere, at least not yet,” Nappier said. “I guess I’ll leave that up to the electorate .”

Nappier, 61, oversees $50 billion in state funds, including $26 billion in retirement assets of state pensioners, teachers and select municipal employees.

Up until last year, when she said she lobbied to get on the retirement boards of the state employee and teacher pension funds, Nappier said she has had limited input on the taxpayer liability of those public sector investment pools.

Nappier said the state teachers pension fund is 62 percent funded, compared to 40 percent on the state employee side.

When the economy was better in the early part of the last decade, Nappier said the state did not always keep up with taxpayer contributions to the public sector pension funds.

And then the market tanked in 2009, which Nappier said sent the state’s pension portfolio down by 17.34 percent.

In comparison to Connecticut’s peers, Nappier said the damage could have been worse.

“That was very good,” Nappier said.

The first black woman state treasurer in the U.S., Nappier previously held the same post in her native Hartford. She took office in 1999.

“Maybe there are some people who feel I’ve been there too long,” Nappier said. “The truth is, I still have much to do here in the treasurer’s office.”

Neil Vigdor